{"id":18297,"date":"2024-01-04T19:44:27","date_gmt":"2024-01-04T18:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/politicalnetworkforvalues.org\/?p=18297"},"modified":"2024-01-05T20:21:33","modified_gmt":"2024-01-05T19:21:33","slug":"number-of-religious-kidnapped-by-dictatorship-in-nicaragua-rises-to-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/politicalnetworkforvalues.org\/en\/2024\/01\/number-of-religious-kidnapped-by-dictatorship-in-nicaragua-rises-to-18\/","title":{"rendered":"Number of religious kidnapped by dictatorship in Nicaragua rises to 18"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are now 18 Catholic bishops, priests and seminarians kidnapped and unjustly imprisoned by the dictator Daniel Ortega<\/strong> in Nicaragua.<\/p>\n

The bishops are Rolando Alvarez<\/strong>, from Matagalpa, deprived of his freedom in August 2022, and Isidoro Mora<\/strong>, bishop of Siuna, kidnapped last December 20 after asking for prayers for Bishop Alvarez during a mass.<\/p>\n

Although the regime qualifies as “detentions” the deprivation of freedom of the prelates, in reality they are kidnappings, followed by imprisonment without any legal process or through irregular processes.<\/p>\n

Most of the priests deprived of their freedom are from the Archdiocese of Managua: Monsignor Carlos Avil\u00e9s<\/strong>, vicar general of the archdiocese; Monsignor Silvio Fonseca<\/strong>, parish of Santa Faz church, and diocesan vicar of Family, Children and Youth; H\u00e9ctor Treminio<\/strong>, parish of Santo Cristo de Esquipulas church; Mykel Monterrey<\/strong>, parish of Nuestra Se\u00f1ora de Candelaria church; Ra\u00fal Zamora<\/strong>, parish of Jes\u00fas de la Divina Misericordia church; Gerardo Jos\u00e9 Rodr\u00edguez<\/strong>, parish of Pur\u00edsima Concepci\u00f3n church; Monsignor Miguel M\u00e1ntica<\/strong>, parish of San Francisco de As\u00eds church; and Ismael Serrano<\/strong>, parish of San Miguel Arc\u00e1ngel church.<\/p>\n

Also: Pablo Villafranca<\/strong>, parish of Nuestro Se\u00f1or de Veracruz Church in Nindir\u00ed; Fernando Calero<\/strong>, parish of Nuestra Se\u00f1ora de F\u00e1tima Church in Matagalpa; Marcos D\u00edaz Prado<\/strong>, parish of Santo Tom\u00e1s Ap\u00f3stol Church in Puerto Corinto; Jader Hern\u00e1ndez<\/strong>, parish of Madre del Divino Pastor Church in Nejapa; and Jos\u00e9 Gustavo Sandino Ochoa<\/strong>, parish of Nuestra Se\u00f1ora de los Dolores Church in Santa Mar\u00eda de Pantasma.<\/p>\n

And three seminarians: Alester S\u00e1enz<\/strong> and Tony Palacio<\/strong>, kidnapped along with Bishop Mora; and Francisco Odorico Castilblanco<\/strong>, kidnapped on January 2 in San Sebasti\u00e1n de Yal\u00ed.<\/p>\n

Daniel Ortega and his wife unleashed during the last 5 years an intense persecution against the Catholic Church for not submitting to their whims. In 2022 the apostolic nuncio Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag<\/strong> and the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity<\/strong> were expelled from the country; and in October 2023, 12 priests who had been held hostage for months in Sandinista prisons. Silvio Baez<\/strong>, auxiliary bishop of Managua, has been in exile since 2019.<\/p>\n

In the last five years, the Ortega dictatorship perpetrated more than 740 attacks against Catholics: kidnappings, imprisonments, forced banishments, closure of churches and radio stations, death threats, desecration of temples, and prohibitions to public acts of faith. In 2023 alone, 275 of these aggressions took place. It was the most violent year against the Church during the five-year period.<\/p>\n

The numbers of the persecution can be known thanks to the courageous and careful documentation work<\/a><\/span> of Nicaraguan lawyer Martha Patricia Molina<\/strong>, who participated in one of the Transatlantic Dialogues in October 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are now 18 Catholic bishops, priests and seminarians kidnapped and unjustly imprisoned by the dictator Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. The bishops are Rolando Alvarez, from Matagalpa, deprived of his freedom in August 2022, and Isidoro Mora, bishop of Siuna, kidnapped last December 20 after asking for prayers for Bishop Alvarez during a mass. Although […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalnetworkforvalues.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalnetworkforvalues.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalnetworkforvalues.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalnetworkforvalues.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalnetworkforvalues.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18297"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/politicalnetworkforvalues.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18301,"href":"https:\/\/politicalnetworkforvalues.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18297\/revisions\/18301"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalnetworkforvalues.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalnetworkforvalues.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalnetworkforvalues.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalnetworkforvalues.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}